Venkaiah to TRS: Celebrate Hyderabad Liberation Day officially

Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu today suggested the TRS Government in Telangana to officially celebrate the "Liberation of Hyderabad State" on September 17 and said the issue should not be linked to vote-bank politics. Even though the people all over the country celebrated and rejoiced over the hard won freedom from British on August 15, 1947, those living in the erstwhile Hyderabad State had to wait for celebration till September 17, 1948 when the region was liberated from the tyrannical Nizam's rule and integrated with the rest of India, he recalled. "While the BJP has been demanding for the past many years for official celebration of the Liberation of Hyderabad State, it is unfortunate some political parties view even matters relating to the nation's integrity through the prism of vote-bank politics," the BJP leader said. There should not be any kind of politics, leave alone vote-bank politics, when it comes to unity and integrity of the nation, the Minister said. "Hyderabad Liberation Day is being celebrated officially on September 17 in some of the districts of Maharashtra and Karnataka and my suggestion to Telangana Government is to follow suit. I hope it would respond positively to the suggestion," Venkaiah said at a 'Tiranga Yatra' function here this morning. During the "autocratic" rule of the Nizam, Telugu language was discouraged as the medium of instruction in educational institutions, he said. "The young generations were not allowed to know and recollect the memories of our forgotten heroes. The time has come to include lessons in school textbooks on the valour and sacrifices made by these stalwarts. Then only various facets about the lives and deeds of these great sons of our soil would be passed on to the coming generations," Naidu said. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken up the Tiranga Yatra to undo the injustice done to forgotten heroes of the freedom movement. Sardar Patel was unifier of India and had he been given a free hand to tackle the Kashmir issue then, the present situation in the militancy-affected State would not have arisen, he added.